For History.com, I wrote about what we can learn from Ramesses II’s mummy:
One of the most renowned pharaohs of his time and ours, Ramesses II, the third ruler of ancient Egypt’s 19th dynasty, built cities, temples and monuments at home and fought campaigns abroad to bring the New Kingdom of Egypt to the peak of its power.
Born around 1279 B.C., he inherited the throne from his father, Seti I, as a teenager and ruled Egypt, according to ancient sources, for a jaw-dropping 66 years and two months, before dying at nearly triple the average ancient Egyptian lifespan. Known to Greeks and Romantic poets as Ozymandias and to much of the English-speaking world as Ramses the Great, Ramesses II left many records of his achievements during life, including the world’s oldest known peace treaty, signed with the Hittites around 1259 B.C. But the second-longest-reigning pharaoh in history left little record of the nature of his death beyond its date, which corresponds to early August of 1213 B.C.